[Haskell-cafe] Proposal: Shorter Import Syntax

[Bardur Arantsson]

On 06/04/2015 06:17 AM, Bardur Arantsson wrote:
> On 06/04/2015 04:24 AM, Phil Ruffwind wrote:
>>> One can look at it this way -- the breakage is a fixed, one-time cost,
>>> whereas the confusion has a running cost.
>>
>> It's not necessarily that simple.  Breaking old code can also breaks
>> all the tutorials, articles, and documentation scattered all over the
>> Internet.  That cost could last a long time.  AFAIK Haskell hasn't
>> done anything so drastic as to change the existing syntax, except to
>> _remove_ things that were already strongly discouraged like n+k.  It
>> will also introduce confusion of a different kind, as programmers will
>> find it strange that their formerly correct code code having suddenly
>> changed semantics.
>>
> 
> Of course we should take such concerns seriously, but given the rarity
> of such usage it would seem to indicate that not many people are using
> the "problematic" syntax in practice... which could be an indication
> that a) haven't learned/copy&pasted it from a tutorial/book, and/or b)
> haven't found it useful even if they *did* learn/copy&paste from a
> tutorial/book.
> 
> So there's that...
> 

Dangit, just ignore this bit. I misread what the 0.3% thing applied to
in Anthony Cowley's email.